From the maximum-security prison in Guanajay, the artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara released a work on audio on April 21, in which he names one by one his loved ones who passed away during his nearly five years of incarceration, whom he was unable to say goodbye to.
The curator and activist Anamely Ramos, who shared the work on her social media, described the piece as something that "deeply moved" her: "So much so that I needed these weeks to embrace it within myself and be able to say something," she wrote in her post.
In the audio, Otero Alcántara performs a moyugba —a prayer of invocation to the ancestors in the Yoruba/Lucumí tradition— pronouncing the formula "Ibae bayen tonu", which in Yoruba means "I greet you, you who have disappeared", equivalent to "Rest in peace".
Name his father Luis Otero Chala, his uncle Manolo Otero Chala, his mother Vivian del Carmen Alcántara Carbonell, his maternal uncle José Antonio Pérez Carbonell, his maternal uncle Jorge Alberto Alcántara Carbonell, his grandmothers Nilda Carbonell Carrión, Georgina Chala, and Dulce María Sardá Ramírez, and his friends Maritza Herrera Soler and Augusto Prieto.
In an audio accompanying the work, the artist asks with sorrow: "I couldn't say goodbye to my grandmother, my uncle, my mother... why not? Are we the worst criminals? Perhaps we are the best children of this country."
Ramos explained that the form chosen by Luis Manuel "has been used by the Yoruba tradition for centuries, and that the common people have embraced it, sometimes even without knowing all the details that comprise it, but feeling its strength and truth."
The activist emphasized the collective nature of the piece: "Luis stands in front and makes the gesture. He invites us to turn it into a collective act of release and healing. A prayer, after all, so that everyone's losses may find peace."
The artist's mother, Vivian del Carmen Alcántara Carbonell, passed away on January 5, 2021 at the age of 57, months before his arrest during the protests on July 11, 2021.
Sentenced in June 2022 to five years in prison for "outrage against national symbols," "disrespect," and "public disorder," Otero Alcántara has continued to create art from his cell as a form of resistance, despite the repressive conditions he denounces.
The event on April 21 took place at a time of heightened tension: weeks after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal and after agents from Department 21 of State Security threatened him with death, which led him to undertake a hunger strike lasting eight days from March 30 to April 6.
A few days after releasing this work, he published an opinion article in The New York Times from prison, in which he described his imprisonment as "a performance that should have ended a long time ago."
Amnesty International recognizes him as a prisoner of conscience and demands his immediate release. His five-year sentence ends in July 2026, although the regime has signaled the possibility of an extension.
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